Iranian-born Canadian citizen Farzad Alavi said he was denied entry to the U.S. on Jan. 10 because of his past mandatory military service in Iran. Alavi, who lost his wife in the Jan. 8 Ukrainian plane crash, claims the U.S. border services’ reason is unjust.
When Iranian-born Canadian citizen Farzad Alavi was denied entry to the U.S. on Jan. 10, he said a border officer told him the reason was his past mandatory military service in Iran — which the officer claimed effectively linked him with terrorists.
“They’re telling me I’m a member of a terrorist organization. It’s very, very difficult for me to digest,” said Alavi.
“They told me never try to enter the States again.”
At the time, Alavi had just suffered a horrific loss. Two days before, his wife, Neda Sadighi, was killed when Iran’s military “unintentionally” shot down a Ukrainian plane after it took off from Tehran.
A grieving Alavi was travelling to the U.S. from Toronto with his son Amirali who needed a special passport stamp from the Iranian consular offices in Washington, before he could attend his mother’s memorial service in Iran. There is no Iranian consulate in Canada.
“We were already devastated,” said 27-year-old Amirali about his mother’s sudden death. “Then the [border] incident happened. It kind of broke us down.”
The plane crash occurred shortly after the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, which heightened tensions between the two countries.
As a result, the U.S. stepped up border security, putting Iranian-born travellers under the spotlight. Alavi is one of half-a-dozen Iranian-born Canadian citizens CBC News has interviewed who were denied entry to the U.S. following the assassination.
Alavi, 55, said he and his son were held for about four hours at the U.S. border in Niagara Falls where they were fingerprinted, had their mobile phones searched, and questioned about pol